Corporate Governance

Lowe’s Foods is taking steps to increase efficiency across its workforce.   The grocer is adopting enterprise labor planning and workforce management solutions from Logile across the chain’s nearly 100 stores operating in the Carolinas and Virginia. The solutions will help the grocer generate more accurate sales and labor forecasts, and improve scheduling at the task level across all store departments.  

The nation’s fastest-growing planned community keeps speeding along.   The Tavistock development, which already has 12,000 permanent residents, will add another thousand visitors a week thanks to a KPMG training facility that broke ground this week. In addition, the $400 million facility will house an employee staff of 330.  

A former executive at Toys "R" Us has joined the executive team of Bridgestone Americas.   Bridgestone named Joe Venezia as president of Bridgestone Retail Operations, effective June 19, 2017. He most recently served as executive VP of global store operations at Toys "R" Us. Venezia joined the toy retailer in 2014 as senior VP, store operations. Prior to Toys "R" Us, Venezia was senior VP of operations and head of stores for convenience-store chain The Pantry.  

The Fresh Market's chief executive has resigned after less than two years on the job.    The Fresh Market announced that Rick Anicetti has resigned as CEO and board member. No reason was given for his departure. Anicetti took the reins of the specialty grocer in September 2015, bringing more than 30 years of experience across a variety of retail functions at Hannaford Brothers Company and Food Lion, where he served as president and CEO.   

For the first time ever, UPS is going to add a surcharge for orders delivered to homes during peak holiday times.    The surcharges, which apply only to residential deliveries, could boost the buy-online-pickup-in-stores (BOPIS) strategy deployed by many store-based retailers.  The move comes as the shipping giant look to combat its escalating costs, which include increased investments in hiring, in the wake of the shipping boom caused by rising online package volumes.    

Fast-growing mattress retailer Casper has closed on a new round of funding — with help from Target Corp.   

Southeastern Grocers' chief executive is leaving after 16-months on the job to pursue "another opportunity."